Black Phoebe fledgling and parent


I took all these pics from inside my car after driving up to about 40 feet from one Black Phoebe. I waited patiently while it just perched quietly, then this juvenile Black Phoebe flew in to a perch less than 25 feet from me providing for such nice close-ups.   The juvenile is in spanking new plumage and it's brown wing stripes (denoting juvenal plumage) stand out nicely.
Just a bit of this fledgling's yellow flanges can be seen, but very small amount as this is clearly an older fledgling (ie, tail is not very short ).  It is even starting to show the raised crown found on adult Black Phoebes.  Also I saw the fledgling do some foraging on it's own, so it is close to gaining independence.
The adult is feeding the fledgling in the pic above.
Some of the insect that the parent bird fed to the fledgling is shown above. 
Bottom 2 pics are of the parent bird. It is scruffy looking, showing disheveled feathers due to a lot of wear. The white feathers shown above are body feathers that are molting.  SeEtta

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Spotted Sandpiper Chicks, 3 more days older

Recently fledged Common Raven

Band-tailed Pigeons, the mountain pigeons